A day after RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav introduced his son Tejaswi to politics, his close aide and Buxar MP Jagadanand Singh’s son quit the party and joined Bihar’s ruling BJP on Friday, calling the RJD’s 15-year regime the state’s “black chapter”.
Sudhakar Singh, who held the post of the RJD’s youth wing general secretary, quit the RJD reportedly after the ongoing seat-sharing talks between the RJD and the LJP left little possibility for him to get a party ticket for next month’s Assembly polls. Considered to be a promising upper-caste youth leader, Singh was upset because even his father, who had been a minister during the RJD governments, failed to help despite his closeness with the RJD boss.
BJP leader and deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who welcomed Sudhakar Singh into the saffron party by ceremonially garlanding him in presence of senior BJP leaders at the party’s state headquarters in Patna, said the new leader, in his mid 30s, would be an asset for the BJP. Sources said Singh would contest from Ramgarh constituency on a BJP ticket.
“I have joined the BJP in order to help the NDA keep up its current achievements of peace and prosperity in Bihar. The RJD’s 15 years of rule in the state and Lalujee’s leadership have been a dark chapter and now there is no hope for improvement in that party,” said Singh to reporters. Sources said the constituency of his choice was allotted to the LJP due to LJP leader Rama Singh’s insistence on getting a party ticket for himself and one for his wife.
A buoyant Modi used the occasion to describe the RJD as a “sinking ship” and chastised the RJD supremo for “forcing his reluctant son” into politics.